Into The Void
by prepare4trouble
Summary: The bandages are off, and Kanan feels a little exposed.


_A/N - So, it's been forever since I posted something here. I've still been writing, I've just been posting over on AO3. I'm working on an AU with a friend of mine, and doesn't allow us to post it in exactly the way we want. But hey, if you think you'd be interested in an AU where Ezra is going blind, head on over to the other site. It might turn up on here eventually, but probably not. Anyway, this one randomly came to me on my lunch break today. I hope you enjoy._

* * *

Kanan heard the door opening and footsteps walking through before he even noticed a presence in the Force. He was hit by a wave of shock, surprise… horror? Something. Lasat emotions were tough to discern. They were all there, they just expressed themselves a little differently to humans.

So did Twi'leks, now he thought of it, but over the years he had apparently gotten used to that without even noticing. That was good, it had made things a little easier. Not much, but some.

The shock-wave of emotion tailed off, flattened out, and morphed into a kind of low level discomfort and concern.

"Hey," Zeb said. His voice belied none of the emotions that the Force had revealed. "So you got the bandages off, huh?"

Kanan turned away slightly from the sound of Zeb's voice, angling his face down to the ground as he did, as though that would be able to disguise the damage. He kept his eyes closed - it wasn't like it made any difference anyway - he didn't know; he couldn't know, but it felt like to display that damage would be worse somehow. He felt, and ignored, the completely ridiculous urge to apologize for his appearance. Instead, he remained silent; there had been no question there, not really, simply a statement of fact. He didn't need to confirm that Zeb was correct, because he could see it for himself.

Kanan felt trapped suddenly, even more so than he had a moment earlier, fixed in place by his inability to see, unable to go anywhere or do anything until Hera returned. Technically, he could have gotten up and left; he had a vague idea of the layout of the room, and of the ship, he knew where his quarters were in relation to the lounge. Fear held him in place. Fear of making a fool of himself, fear of Zeb offering to help, fear of the darkness that surrounded him, and only him.

Kanan wasn't used to feeling afraid.

Adrenaline spikes, moments of panic, a flare of his fight or flight response spurring him on, pushing him in the right direction, yes. He wasn't an idiot, he had the same self-preservation instinct as everybody else, but this, this constant anxiety, the inability to do anything for himself, not even being able to muster the courage to get up and move to another part of the ship. It was wearing him down.

Zeb grunted quietly as he lowered himself into a chair opposite Kanan. Kanan turned his head a little further, probably too far for it to look like anything other than a transparent attempt to disguise the scar.

"Gotta admit," Zeb said. "It's good to see you out and about. We've been worried."

Kanan rotated his cup in his hands. He wasn't here by choice. As soon as Hera returned, she would take him back to his quarters. She had been longer than she had promised, leaving him stranded in the lounge nursing the cup of water that he had used to wash down his last dose of pain meds.

There had been a kind of finality to that act. The removal of the bandages, the last of the meds, the med droid hadn't even made him book a next appointment, though it had advised him to make one in a few weeks. It was as though he was done with, no longer required, discarded like the useless broken thing that he was.

That was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous. He was allowing himself to wallow in self pity. Of course, it was difficult not to do that, when that was literally all you were capable of doing.

He tipped his head back and finished the last of his water, then reached out through the Force, searching for Hera. He could sense her nearby, he couldn't tell exactly where, but probably on the ship, if not very close. She had said a few minutes, but she had been longer.

"Want another one?" Zeb's detached voice asked out of the darkness.

Kanan frowned, confused.

"A drink, I mean. You finished that one, want another?"

Kanan shook his head, still angled away from Zeb, showing him more of the top of his head than his face. He wasn't sure whether that would make any difference to what Zeb could see. He wasn't even sure why he cared.

He rotated the cup again, listening to the sound it made on the tabletop. Maybe Hera had forgotten him; gotten so caught up in some aspect of another of setting up the base, or some minor issue with the engines, or any of the hundreds of things she was responsible for, and the fact that she had left him there, stranded, had simply skipped her mind.

Surely she hadn't left him there on purpose? She had been saying he needed to get out of his room and start to interact with other people again. But surely she wouldn't force that upon him?

"Well, I'm gonna get myself some food," Zeb said. Kanan heard him get to his feet and move to the side of the room. "Want anything?" he asked, from his new location.

Kanan shook his head, and tried to decide when he had last eaten. Not today, he didn't think. Or had it been? He wasn't actually sure of the time of day, perhaps it was evening, and that would put his last meal earlier that day. Or perhaps it was still morning, or early afternoon, in which case maybe the night before. Either way, it hadn't been so long. He had gone without for longer periods.

As Zeb tore open the wrapper to a nutrition bar, Kanan felt his stomach protest at its own emptiness. Maybe it hadn't been so long since his last meal, but apparently it had been long enough.

"Here," Zeb said, closer to him than Kanan had realized. Presumably he had moved back across the room while Kanan was lost in thought.

Kanan opened his eyes and looked up to see what was happening, then remembered that he couldn't. It hit him like a punch to the gut, again, and he wondered how many times it would take before that stopped happening. Having the bandages off made it worse; easier to forget.

Something touched the back of his knuckles still gripping the empty cup, and he recoiled in surprise.

"I could hear your stomach from the other side of the room," Zeb told him. "Anyway, you're looking thin. And that beard isn't helping."

Kanan frowned, and folded his arms. "Right. Anything else you want to complain about?" He didn't raise an eyebrow, to do so might have hurt the still-sensitive flesh of his face.

"No. Glad you're finally talking though, I was starting to wonder if you still could. Here, take it."

It must have been a ration bar, the thin papery thing that had touched his hand had been the wrapper. If he knew where it was, he might have taken it. As soon as he had pulled his hand away in surprise at the unexpected touch, the offered bar had disappeared into the void, and there was no way he was going to start groping around for it. He held out a hand, palm up, and waited for Zeb to get the message.

For a moment, nothing happened, then something was pressed into his palm. Kanan allowed his fingers to close around the rectangular shape, and then work their way to the end to open it. "This better not be one of the disgusting ones," he said. He sniffed it experimentally, but the thing had no noticeable odor.

"Would I do that?" Zeb asked, innocence dripping from every word.

Kanan shook his head. "Honestly," he said, "I'm not sure." He took a small bite, and relaxed slightly. As nice as it might be to think Zeb would feel comfortable enough to do that, Kanan wasn't ready for jokes that would take advantage of him in that way.

He took a larger bite, and chewed slowly.

"I bet it's a relief to get that bandage off, right?" Zeb asked.

Kanan's free hand automatically rose toward his face. He stopped before he could touch the damaged skin, and turned his face away again. He had no idea how it looked, but he knew it was bad. Lightsaber burns seared the skin with heat and light so intense they cauterized as they cut. By rights, he should be dead, he still hadn't sure how he had survived. Bacta helped, but they only had a limited supply, and even with a full tank there would have been only so much that could be done. They hadn't had a full tank. Maybe that was for the best, they weren't a pleasant experience, and he could only imagine being unable to see wouldn't have made it more tolerable.

"You don't have to keep doing that," Zeb told him.

"Doing what?" Kanan asked.

"That," Zeb supplied unhelpfully, then gave a frustrated sounding sigh when whatever he had been pointing to, or indicating in some way, failed to get the message across. "Trying to hide your face like that. It's not working anyway, you're not hiding anything, and you don't need to. We've all got scars, they're nothing to be ashamed of.

"I'm not ashamed," Kanan said, and it was true, he wasn't. Not of the scar itself, anyway, but maybe of how he got it, and of what it represented. Besides, he didn't know how it looked, and something about that bothered him.

"Something to be proud of, actually," Zeb continued. "It shows you're a survivor."

"I'm not ashamed," Kanan said again into the void.

He had been a survivor for a long time, but had worn most of his scars on the inside. He had never thought of himself as vain; maybe he had been wrong.

Suddenly no longer hungry, the half of the bar that he had eaten sitting as a hard lump in his stomach, Kanan folded the wrapper over the open end, and shoved it into his pocket. His appetite might return later, and there was a very good chance he wouldn't want to grope and stumble his way through the ship.

Still no Hera. She would come, he didn't doubt it for a moment, she hadn't been so long, not really. It just felt that way, because she had left him alone in the dark. He was also reasonably sure she had done it for a reason. Whether she had known Zeb would walk in, or simply hoped that somebody would, he wasn't sure. Maybe she just wanted to make sure he was out of his quarters for a little while. She was probably right, he supposed, it was time he started to live again. He just needed some more time to figure out exactly what that meant now.

He slid out from his seat and got to his feet. The Force surrounded him, a confusing mess of feelings and sensations that should be familiar but somehow weren't. He felt himself swaying slightly as he tried to get his balance. The exit was to his left, a short walk across the room. Suddenly, he could feel Zeb's eyes on him, though he couldn't tell whether that information had come to him through the Force, or his own imagination.

At some point, without noticing it, he had opened his eyes again, and he found himself straining against the nothing before them, struggling to see. He slammed them closed again, but it made no difference; he couldn't not look at it. His hand reached out clumsily in the direction of the wall, and to his relief, he found it exactly where he had expected. Fingers not breaking contact with its smooth surface, he began to walk slowly around the room. His other hand reached out ahead of him, hovering somewhere around his waist. There would be no obstacles there, he knew that, but still he couldn't help himself.

"Wait."

Kanan paused; that had been Zeb's voice, much closer than he should have been. Had he walked a much shorter distance than he had thought? Or had he somehow walked right the way around the room? Disorientation struck him, and he stood still, reaching out with the Force, trying to make some sense of what was happening.

"You think I'm going to let you wander off on your own? Hera'd kill me."

Kanan shook his head. "I'm not a child," he said, angrily. "I don't need to hold your hand." Despite the fact that he hadn't gone anywhere in weeks without Hera guiding him, that was.

"Good," Zeb told him. "I wasn't offering. If you'd wanted my help, you'd have asked for it. I'm still gonna make sure you get where you're going in one piece, and I figured it's better to let you know than to just follow you, it's not like you wouldn't have known I was there."

Zeb was giving him too much credit. Still, he appreciated the compliment, and the honesty. He didn't tell Zeb he didn't want him there, because Zeb already knew that

Instead, he gritted his teeth and continued on his way under Zeb's watchful eye.

He wondered what Hera was going to think when she found him missing.

Then, maybe this had been her intention all along.


End file.
